The present invention relates to a granular material feeder and especially to a granular chlorine compound feeder for feeding dry chlorine to a tank for mixing with water, such as may be utilized for regulating the chlorine level in swimming pools, water supplies and the like.
In the past, a great variety of chlorinators have been provided for feeding different types of chlorine into water and such devices are commonly used in chlorinating municipal drinking water, and in home and commercial swimming pools for maintaining the chlorine level in the pools. Chlorine is a commonly used disinfectant and bactericide and when maintained at the proper level reduces the microorganism count in the water to a safe level and reduces the growth of unicellular algae and the like. Gaseous chlorine is highly corrosive in the presence of moisture where it hydrolyzes and can form hydrochloric acid so that specially designed feeders for chlorine gas are used to regulate the flow of gas into the water supply. Because of the dangers involved in utilizing compressed chlorine gas, swimming pool operators usually utilize a chlorine compound in which the chlorine is released when the chlorine compound is mixed with water. The chlorine is provided in granular or tablet form as well as in other shapes and may be manually tossed into the swimming pool or other body of water and numerous chlorine feeders have been provided for metering dry chlorine compounds into swimming pools at predetermined rates. Typically, these use specially designed blocks of a dry chlorine compound, with some means of regulating the flow of water through the chlorine feeder, such as jets to gradually dissolve the chlorine in accordance with the flow rate of the water through the feeder. One disadvantage of this type of chlorine feeder is that it requires a specially shaped chlorine and must be reloaded at frequent intervals. One prior art patent has suggested the use of a granular chlorine feeder in which chlorine is fed from a hopper into a receiving tank by means of a rotating screw in which the screw can be rotated at different speeds to feed the chlorine from the hopper where it is dropped into a mixing tank where it is mixed with water and fed to a swimming pool. Inasmuch as the chlorine is dropped in the tank from above the tank, the dry chlorine is never in contact with the moisture until it is dropped in the tank for mixing.
The present invention relates to an improved granular chlorine feeder for feeding dry chlorine into a mixing tank where it is mixed and fed into a swimming pool or other body of water. The chlorine is fed by a reliable mechanism which can be actuated by a timer for maintaining the chlorine level in the swimming pool or alternatively can be controlled by a chlorine monitoring system as set forth in my prior U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,809,922 and 3,836,447.